Gun owners.
When we’re on the defensive – as we were 3-4 years ago, here in Minnesota – we are the most motivated people in politics. We make people sit up and listen – or we throw them out of office.
But when times are less perilous? It’s another story. And it’s understandable; unlike the anti-gun / criminal safety movement, we have jobs, families and real lives. We can’t just drop everything and run down to spend a day at the Capitol for anything but a serious emergency.
And let’s be honest – compared to 15 years ago, never mind 30 years ago, we Real Americans of the 2nd Amendment movement are doing pretty well. The 2nd Amendment may be the only liberty where the needle has been pushed the right way – but we have pushed it.
But complacency is what got us the 1970s. And it could happen again.
This year, there are two important 2nd Amendment-related civil rights bills on the agenda:
- HF188, authored by Rep. Jim Nash, would make permits to carry optional throughout Minnesota. A law-abiding citizen should not have to beg government permission to carry a firearm – and the little card has no bearing on whether people commit crimes or not.
- HF238, also authored by Rep. Nash, provides some much-needed reforms Minnesota’s self-defense laws, codifying decades of case law (thus removing nobody-knows-how-many felony traps from the rules of self-defense), removing the so-called “duty to retreat” in Minnesota law.
Now, it’s was a fair bet Governor Dayton would have vetoed either or both bills.
And then again, maybe not; antagonizing shooters helped the DFL lose pretty much all of rural Minnesota; Dayton could easily have doomed a few more of the remaining outstate Democrats by vetoing these bills – and caused any number of other headaches by vetoing the omnibus bills they were going to be parts of.
But the GOP caucuses haven’t put the bills into the omnibuses yet. Word has it that Senate leadership is “playing defense”, trying not to lose seats (notwithstanding their next election isn’t until 2020). And if the Senate isn’t going to push the bills, there’s no point in the GOP pushing them. Right?
Wrong.
And there’s a report that at least one GOP legislator from a safer-than-safe district is afraid of the Dreamsicles.
It’s time for the GOP to pay back some of the political capital that the 2nd Amendment movement has invested in it. And if safe Republicans are going to profess political “fear” a couple dozen ELCA-haired, deluded bobbleheads in orange? It might be time for them to re-learn what political “fear” really is.
And that means you and I need to step up.
It’s Go Time. It’s time for all law-abiding 2nd Amendment human rights supporters to get on the line and burn up the phones, today.
Call your representative and your Senator.
And call:
House Speaker Rep. Kurt Daudt
Office: 651-296-5364
E-Mail: rep.kurt.daudt@house.mn
Majority Leader Rep. Joyce Peppin
Office: 651-296-7806
E-Mail: rep.joyce.peppin@house.mn
Public Safety Committee Chairman Tony Cornish
Office: 651-296-4240
E-Mail: rep.tony.cornish@house.mn
Politely tell them that they need to deliver. We’re not complacent, and our support is not to be taken for granted.
This needs to be a political flood of biblical proportions.
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